Published by the Swedish Institute at Athens. Distributed by Astrom Editions. Hylas, the Nymphs, Dionysos and others. Myth, ritual, ethnicity. Martin P. Nilsson Lecture on Greek Religion, delivered 1997 at the Swedish Institute at Athens By Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood The focus of this book is the reconstruction of the mythicoritual nexus of Hylas in Kios in Mysia through the in-depth investigation of the evidence (surviving in accounts by, and so shaped by the filters of, outsiders) and also of other issues implicated in its Problematik: ethnicity, cultural and religious interactions between Greeks and non Greeks, colonial discourses (with special emphasis on the foundation mythopoea of Kios’ mother city, Miletos), the nature and function of the Nymphs, the different personalities of Dionysos, advent festivals, certain problematic categories of cult recipients. Hylas’ myth and ritual had been constructed, I conclude, through complex interactions between several Greek mythicoritual schemata and included also elements that appear in non Greek nexuses located in the area of Kios. The myth was both a foundation myth constructing cultural continuity with the heroic age and an immortalization myth: a Greek youth was abducted by Nymphs and became a deity rooted in the landscape, symbolically rooting the colony to the…
